Good Luck, But Not Too Much Good Luck

TigerBlog was walking inside a deli yesterday to get a sandwich for lunch when he noticed a very, very familiar t-shirt out front. 

It was being worn by a young woman who was at a table that faced the front door, which means TB saw it right away. Which t-shirt? It was the Ivy League's "8 Against Hate" t-shirt. 

Of course TB explained that he worked at Princeton and then asked her which Ivy school she attended and what sport she played. It turned out that she and her friend opposite are current Yale women's lacrosse players. 

At that point, TB congratulated them on having a great season and, when they said they were rising juniors, he said "good luck next year — but not too much good luck, especially against Princeton."

They laughed and thanked him for his good wishes.  

Then he went inside and ordered a Thanksgiving sandwich, with turkey and stuffing. It also would have had cranberry sauce, only TB doesn't like cranberry sauce, so he asked for it without. 

The owner of the deli then informed him that their cranberry sauce was homemade, which was nice to know. It doesn't mean TB would like it any more, though, so he stuck with his original order. 

He's glad he did. It was a great sandwich. The cranberry sauce would have ruined it.  

Meanwhile, back at the Yale women's lacrosse players, they could have been any other Ivy League athletes. They could have been Dartmouth tennis players or Brown baseball players or Penn soccer players or anything else, male or female.

The Ivy League office makes a considerable effort to talk about the commonalities of the league and its athletes. Yes, there is great competition within the league, but it has also always stood for more than just wins and losses. 

To state the obvious, it's always been a league that's stressed the value of athletics as an extension of the academic experience. That remains unchanged, even as Ivy teams have so successfully competed on a national level (especially Princeton, of course).  

Take the Yale women's lacrosse players. Princeton defeated Yale in the regular season and won the Ivy championship. Yale defeated Princeton in the Ivy tournament final. Both teams made it to the NCAA quarterfinals. 

That's an intensely competitive rivalry, played out over the course of one season.  

And yet, on a sunny July afternoon outside of a deli, they didn't seem like rivals. They seemed like athletes who were part of the same eight-member club as those who compete for Princeton and the other league schools. 

It made TB wonder if this same feeling exists among other leagues. Maybe it does. Who knows? 

When it comes time to play Yale in any sport this coming athletic year, make no mistake. Both sides will be all in on winning.

But is there a camaraderie among Ivy athletes that is different than other leagues? Maybe TB has just spent so many years in the Ivy League that it's all he really knows. 

Maybe there is something to the fact that as the world of intercollegiate athletics has seen massive conference realignment in recent years, resulting in four superconferences with no regard for traditional rivalries or, for that matter, geography. And then there is everyone else — hoping to find the right seat when the music stops. 

The Ivy League stands as the lone exception. From its inception in the mid-1950s, there have been eight teams, the same eight teams. Nobody has left. Nobody has come in. 

Maybe that explains why there is so much pride in being an "Ivy League" athlete. TigerBlog at least would like to think that's the case. 

Could it be that in a different league, one the Power Four perhaps, the two women's lacrosse players would have simply sneered at TB? 

Right now there are hundreds, thousands actually, of Ivy League athletes who are preparing for whatever the 2025-26 academic year brings. TigerBlog would say the same thing to all of them, from all eight schools. 

It's the same thing he said to the two women yesterday.

Good luck, but not too much good luck — especially when you play Princeton.